


If Only For A Moment

by PlayingTheGameOfThrones



Category: Star Wars, The Last Jedi
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayingTheGameOfThrones/pseuds/PlayingTheGameOfThrones
Summary: The memory of what happened in the throne room – and the choice she almost made – keeps Rey up at night.





	If Only For A Moment

For just a moment, Rey considered it.

She doesn’t know what it says about her character that she considered – however briefly – taking the hand of the man who would destroy all she had come to love in the galaxy, and she doesn’t care to dwell on it.

 _But you loved him too_ , her mind reminds her. _You almost took his hand not to destroy, but to save._

Rey grumbles to herself and sits up in her small cot on the Falcon, all hopes of sleep gone. She kicks the blankets around her ankles, suddenly too warm, and closes her eyes, focusing on her breathing, the way Luke had taught her. She travels to that place in her mind she so rarely visits now, but that she knows she must face if she is ever going to sleep.

_Rey regarded the outstretched hand before her, clad once more in a black glove that concealed the warm flesh beneath. It seemed a thousand years ago now that she had felt his palm against her own and they assured each other they were not alone in the galaxy. The man who stood in front of her now seemed a thousand light years away from the man she had run to after the cave, who had draped a blanket around her shoulders and listened to her with those tears in his eyes, as if her pain were his own. Now he pleaded with her to bring a new order to the galaxy, whatever that meant (she suspected he didn’t even know), but she did know it meant letting her friends in the Resistance die. And she knew she couldn’t let that happen._

_But then the man’s eyes changed. Kylo Ren melted away in a rush of unshed tears in Ben’s eyes and his broken “Please.” Rey felt her heart seize in her chest. Here, once more, was the man she loved, his heart held out to her in his hand._

_Had she been wrong about the vision? She had seen it so clearly: Ben standing at her side, a serene smile on his face as he reached for her hand with his own, twin blue lightsabers held at their sides. She knew from the visions she encountered in the castle on Takodana that they could be deceiving. Master Skywalker’s warning echoed in her mind: This is not going to go the way you think. Was this how the vision would come to fruition? Not by saving the Resistance, but by standing at Ben Solo’s side as his queen?_

_For a moment, she let herself imagine that future. A future free from the hardship she had endured on Jakku. A future with someone she knew loved her in his own way, maybe not the right way, not yet, but maybe someday. A twin throne at his side. She reached her hand out, and for a moment, just for a moment, she was going to –_

_But no. Tears filled her eyes as she realized she could never – would never – leave her friends to the mercy of the First Order._

_She stretched her hand out and called the lightsaber to her._

Rey is brought back to herself with the flash of light that broke the lightsaber in half, the two halves of which she has stored beneath her pillow. A voice whispers in her mind just as she feels herself drifting back to sleep: _Rey. Please._


End file.
